A Heartwarming, Shameless Tale of the Romney Family

Apparently, we are going to have to deal with all the Romneys, and not just Papa Willard, for the next six months. Just some average folks with an average stay-at-home mom — good grab, Mr. Bogg — and kids who know the value of every damn penny of the $100 million Papa left each of them without having to pay any gift tax. Son Josh sent out an e-mail blast this afternoon asking us, along with the video above, to send Ann a Happy Birthday notice. And, well, son Josh, obviously overwhelmed by the emotions of the moment, managed to squeak out something that reads like it was produced last Thursday by three consultants and a focus group in Paramus:

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What type of birthday present do you get someone who has spent her life as a psychiatrist, taxi driver, cook, ringmaster, babysitter, seamstress, tutor, and nurse? Whatever I end up getting her, it will never be enough to express how much my brothers and I appreciate my mom.

Also, too, dressage.

(And has son Josh's heartfelt collection of talking points made me reluctant to post, once again, the funniest thing in the history of the Intertoobz? Of course, not.)

The real work of Humanizing The Romneybot will come from our elite political media, and that work is already well underway. Its primary vehicle for this likely will be wife, Ann. People already were lining her up to be the "secret weapon" in the Romney campaign long before Hilary Rosen opened her yap. Now, it appears that she will be everywhere, the public face of the campaign, the martyred mom of all martyred moms, except with car elevators. (George Stephanopolous, who once was alleged to be intelligent, actually wondered out loud this weekend whether or not the president should give back the $1 million to Bill Maher because of something Maher said about Ann Romney last week. Was Bill Clinton responsible for everything every one of his big donors said back in 1992? Are we completely screwed as a nation? Don't answer that last one.) What we have now is a process by which Ann can do the work of humanizing the Romneybot while being utterly bulletproof herself. And, well, I choose not to be part of it. I am glad that Ann Romney has horses to help her course of therapy for her multiple sclerosis. I also know that there are women out there with MS who can barely afford canes, and can't afford the drug therapies at all, and that her husband's plans for the national health-care system will make the lives of those women worse, and not better, so if she's coming out as a combination of Ma Ingalls and Maria Goretti, I reserve the right for very specific personal reasons to call bullshit on this as loudly as I can. And George Stephanopolous can go whistle up a fish.

Meanwhile, while we're all being careful not to injure Ann's Fiandaca-swathed fee-fee, the Romneybot itself was setting out quite specific plans for the upcoming plutocracy. (And gigantic props to Sara Murray of the WSJ for once again proving that 90 percent of great journalism is showing up.) He also, unsurprisingly, lied his eyebrows off about the state of American politics....

He also vowed to stand up to teachers unions and warned that unions would funnel dues to Mr. Obama's reelection campaign. "The unions will put in hundreds of millions of dollars," Mr. Romney said. "There's nothing like it on our side," he said, and he encouraged attendees to get their friends to donate, as well.

"There's nothing like it on our side."

Rick Santorum must be busting a gut over that one. Newt Gingrich's jaw may never come off the floor. A man who money-bombed his way to the nomination of a party a substantial portion of which looks upon him as a stubborn and unsightly rash is pleading poor-mouth to a bunch of go-zillionnaires in Palm Beach because that mighty 10 percent of the American labor force that's organized is about to unleash its mighty wrath on poor widdle him. The shame in this family must skip two generations.